


teabags in your pockets, love

by watfordbird33



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Femslash, France (Country), Friendship/Love, Pet Names, Post-Second War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 15:47:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11535384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watfordbird33/pseuds/watfordbird33
Summary: Gin, he says, Gin, this isn’t right.What happened, then? she asks him, to make it wrong?Luna Lovegood happened, he tells her (or didn’t, is the thing unspoken, or did and then wasn’t, quick as that).





	teabags in your pockets, love

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for a fair amount of sexual content, though no explicitly described sex. And a breakup. But it's all very civil.

After the war, Lu goes away. It’s not clear where she’s disappeared to. Not even her father knows.

Ginny misses her--closest friend, dear heart, thestral girl--with a kind of fierce passion that exhibits itself in moodiness and endless cups of tea. There are teabags in her pockets constantly, now. She dyes three of her best pink bras a lovely tawny-gold color before she trains herself to just throw the bags away.

 

That’s nice, says Harry, pausing on the back clasp of her favorite bra. 

Mmm? says Ginny, incoherent with sensation.

The pattern. Kind of, I don’t know, all spangly pink and gold.

Ginny laughs: Harry and fashion. She says, It’s not purposeful. I had teabags in my pockets. I ruined a bunch of bras in the laundry.

Well, wouldn’t call it  _ ruined,  _ really, then, says Harry, with one of his little smiles, and puts his mouth right over the strap where it crests her shoulder. There’s a brief interlude of soft sucking and a murmur or two against the swell of her shoulder where it blurs into her neck. Harry can be unbearably sexy when he wants to.

Lu drinks--a lot of tea, Ginny says, when she can sort of speak again.

Present tense. Always.

Is that why you do, now? Because she’s gone?

I used to--go over--and she’d make us--some disgusting _\--_ _ oh-- _ mix. Ah. _ Harry.  _ I mean--it was the grossest--thing, really. 

Harry manages to get the clasp of Ginny’s ruined bra undone. To celebrate, maybe, he bites a beautiful purpley hickey right beneath her collarbone. You miss her, he says, and from this angle, the cast of his brow looks like Lu’s, if you took away the scar. 

We all do, Ginny corrects. She’s not sure why she feels she has to.

Well, sure. But she was your best friend. Sorry. Is.

He’s spoiled the mood, though; and they both know it. Suicide is a rumor that runs wild: after the war, and Lu’s eccentricity, and  _ what her mother did.  _ No one is ever quite sure if it was purposeful or not. But it could have been, and regardless: the girl’s one of the Lovegoods.  _ You  _ know how they are.

Harry says, sitting up, You seem sad. Do you want to stop?

Go on, she says, I guess. I don’t know.

It’s only the second time since the war, that they’ve done this--ended up in bed in a leisurely sex-smelling tangle, a glass of wine apiece forgotten on the nightside table. The first night, Harry took his sweet goddamn time.

If you’re not ready--

It’s not that I’m not ready.

She tries to guide his hand to her breast, again, his head down to her shoulder.

Gin, he says, Gin, this isn’t right.

What happened, then? she asks him, to make it wrong?

Luna Lovegood happened, he tells her (or  _ didn’t,  _ is the thing unspoken, or  _ did  _ and then  _ wasn’t _ , quick as that).

Is it going to be forever, then?

I don’t know-- _ really,  _ I don’t. All I know is that you’ve already lost Fred, and Tonks, and most of Bill, too, and then Lu on top of all that, now, and I don’t think I can fill those holes anymore.

I wish you could, she tells him.

I wish I could, too. He kisses her forehead. Where the scar would be, if she had one. She used to dream about his scar, and Tom sitting next to him, and both of them so white-faced it wasn’t clear who was dead. Someday, Harry says, with this little smile that just twists her heart--someday, hon, okay? Or maybe never, maybe that’s how it will be. But we won’t just stay apart.

And he kisses her, once, the slow kiss of someone drifting. It’s a nice parting, if she’s honest. There are no tears. When they’ve dressed themselves and undone protection spells, they sit on the floor and drink wine, and Ginny puts on an old Weird Sisters album Lu gave her, a long time ago.

 

This is fate, laughing: Ginny gets home from work the following Tuesday and Lu is standing outside her apartment, wearing some sort of exotic style of robes that leaves half her thigh flusteringly bare.

Hello, Ginny, she says, casual, as if she’s never left. Could I bother you for a cup of tea?

 

She’s brought her own teffle roots, of course, in a neat paper bag tied off at the top, and she instructs Ginny seriously on the intricate chopping and steeping that’s required. Ginny’s hasn’t said anything, yet. She feels, somehow, that it would be unbearably common and rude to say something like, Welcome home, or,  _ God, _ I’ve missed you.

Lu points at the big cast-iron pot. And leave them there, for thirty minutes. 

No water? Ginny says, her first words.

Of course no water; they generate their own tea-water, when they’re cooked long enough. By the way, love, your voice is scratchier. I hope you haven’t been caught by pekelists; there was a flutter of them going around, in France. But it’s all too possible, unfortunately. Perhaps you’d let me have a look.

There’s this thing building in the pit of Ginny’s stomach that doesn’t have a name.

France? she says; that’s where you were, all this time?

Lu pulls aside the shoulder of her robes. There’s a little tattoo on her collarbone, of her mother’s name, with a fruit beside it that might be a teffle root. 

They do marvelous Muggle tattoos, in France, she says, reflectively. Or perhaps I just found a particularly lovely shop. I could have spelled it myself, obviously, but every once in a while I feel like returning to the real world. The problem is, of course, the real world doesn’t always want me to return.

It’s pretty, Ginny says, looking at the tattoo. The ambiguous teffle root makes her smile.

Lu says, Thank you. Maybe you can come with me, next time. You seem to be my ambassador to the real world, most of the time. Will you let me check for pekelists now?

Where would they be? says Ginny, kind of nervous.

Lu touches her own throat. Here. Come here and let me look. They’re dangerous, if you let them fester too long, you know. My mother barely found mine in time. 

Ginny says, Where should I--

Lu pats a spot between her long legs in their creamy robes. And tilt your head back, if you would. It’s easier from a higher vantage point.

Ginny kneels, obediently. The temperature in the apartment’s risen to an unfair measurement. She opens her mouth and Lu’s fingers close carefully around her jaw (thumbs above her upper lip, gentle), and God, but she smells just how she used to. Teffle root and dirigible plums.

Hold still, love, Luna says, very softly, and close your eyes.


End file.
